Wednesday 27 June 2012

New Blog


My good friend Lori and I decided to start a blog about books and food (since that is what we seem to talk about mostly) and everything inbetween.  Go have a look by clicking on the image above and let us know what you think!

Monday 25 June 2012

PROJECT 365: Part 10

Quite  few photos today, I've let them pile up again.  I'm trying to look at things differently and take photos from different perspectives.  I think these latest photos are a bit better.  Not wow, just not completely boring.  So lets see if I can keep improving.

Day 81: Lonely tree
I took this while working at the farm museum.  I was working in a very cold boardroom/research area, where they keep all their books and had to get up every now and then just to keep the blood circulating or try to find a patch of warm.  FYI there are no patches of warm in that entire building.  I kept going to look out the window as there were school buses driving in or tractors watering the sand roads or birds or cats to look at.  My eyes kept on being drawn to this tree with these poles in front of it.  It looked so out of place.  I know it looks like the other trees are surrounding it, but relative to the other trees, this little tree looked so isolated.  With only those 10 poles for company. Poor little tree :(


Day 82: Steaming mug of vanilla chai tea
Again, this was taken in the boardroom/research area of the farm museum.  Feck it's cold there.  I was writing notes when the movement of the steam off the tea caught my eye.  I didn't capture it precisely, it was far more beautiful in real life.


Day 83: Yummy! Veggie soup, here we come.
 
My first homemade soup of the season.  Well, I bought the veggies in a ready chopped and mixed soup pack.  But I cooked em up myself, that counts right?


Day 84: A barrelful of naartjies.

These are the same fruit in the photos of days 56 and 78.  I just had some help picking these.  The tree is not neatly pruned and has been left to grow wild, so most of the fruit sits at the top of the tree which is far away from where I can reach.  Under my Dad's supervision, my sister and her fiance (and me) managed to pick quite a lot.  Well, I say pick: actually they shook them out of the tree so my sister and I picked most of them off of the ground.  My parents and my sister left with a shopping bagful and I packed another bagful for my boss and the lady who comes to clean my house every 2 weeks.  And I still have a load.  If I get around to making jam (I found a recipe for naartjie marmalade) I'll be sure to take a photo.


Day 85: Reading
This is my Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  I have the most beautiful set of Harry Potter books.  Guess what I'm reading at the moment...


Day 86: Winter morning sky
Another weird winter sky. I love the sky... *sigh*

Anyway, as I was leaving for work on this morning, I looked to my right and this is what I saw.


Day 87: A most excellent dawg!
 This is a very poor photo of Shilo.  I was lying in bed (as I often do, it seems) and he looked at me like this.  I quickly snapped this photo with my phone, and tried to edit and improve it as far as I could and this is the result.  While Penny is awfully cute, Shilo is simply the best dog.  He's a dog's dog; a people dog; a handsome dog; a dog without issues.  Simply excellent!


Day 88: The eye of the Penny.
Again, I was lying on my bed.... And I decided I needed to capture Penny's eye colour for posterity.  Penny has the most beautiful colour eyes!  In fact, one of the reasons why I chose Penny for Shilo (after all, she is his dog, not mine) was that her mother had the most beautiful colour eyes.  I told Penny the day I brought her home that if she did not end up with the same eyes as her mother, I was taking her back.  I don't think she believed me...

Penny is a total girl and has her fair share of issues, most of which we have worked through.  I love her to pieces, and she is so different from Shilo but they are perfect for each other.  Shilo's eyes, which you can't see in the photo above of him, are so dark, you generally can't distinguish his iris from his pupil.  He has beetle black eyes, which in no way stops them from being very expressive!


Day 89: Emergency chocolate mug cake.
Nuff said, really.


Day 90: Rock cakes. Yum!
I have only ever found these at one supermarket in my area.  Ok, two, but the second one only had them once.  I love rock cakes.  They are sugary, raisin goodness!


Day 91: Tug of war on the move.
I love this photo.  This is basically how the two of them are. All. The. Time.  When they're not sleeping of course.  Look at their ears! Silly doggies.


Day 92: New boots.
Thanks to my sister!  I wouldn't have any shoes if it wasn't for her.  I hate shoe shopping.  She LOVES shoe shopping.  So it works out well.  But I now have far more shoes than I ever wanted!

These are super warm though and nice looking to boot!  And I need warm on my feet.


I am still driving around in my Mom's naturally air conditioned beetle (Read: freezing).  Keep fingers and toes crossed that I get my car back this week.


Wednesday 13 June 2012

PROJECT 365: Part 9

ONWARDS!


Day 74: Agricultural books

 My current task at the Willem Prinsloo Agricultural museum is going through their small library to learn something about agriculture, agriculture in South Africa and the history of agriculture.  So I am slowly going through each of the books you see above.  Hopefully, once I've done that, I will be able to think up an exciting new exhibition theme.  And have some clue as to what all the strange implements, which are part of the museum collection, are.


Day 75: Strange winter weather
Overcast weather is not something we see often in winter on the highveld.  Apparently it even rained a bit in some parts!  And it was bloody cold.  This sky was moody and beautiful though.


Day 76: It may look lovely and sunny but it's bloody freezing!
Our winter skies generally look more like this.  This was taken in my back yard.  I took the picture quickly and then hurried back inside to sit in front of the heater,


Day 77: New winter linen
Another purchase from the shopping day.  I love winter linen!  It's so snugly. 


Day 78: from my garden.
This is the citrus fruit that was pictured on Day 56.  It's called a naartjie (narchie) over here, and according to Wikipedia is "also known as cold hardy mandarin, satsuma mandarin, satsuma orange, Christmas orange, and tangerine".  Which really confuses me because we get tangerines too and mandarins and occasionally satsuma's and they all taste and look slightly different.  Anywhoodle, this naartjie comes from my garden and is rather tasty!

Day 79: Portrait of a Bedside Table

A peek into the messiness that is my life.


Day 80: Traffuck.
I was late for work again this morning.  But today I have a valid excuse.  And photographic evidence!


My animals are sadly missing from my recent photos.  I think I need to remedy that...

Wednesday 6 June 2012

PROJECT 365: Part 8

A spectacularly boring couple of weeks, with the exception of shopping and Snow White and her Huntsman.

Day 61: Carriages. Many, many carriages.
This is at the Willem Prinsloo Agricultural Museum, where I should spending a few days every week from now on.  Agriculture is not my thing, but a change is as good as a holiday, right?  The museum also has an exceptional collection of wagons and carriages, as you can see.




Day 62: Two Haws shopping.


SisHaw decided we needed a girl's day out.  And for her that means shopping.  I don't generally enjoy shopping.  I like to go in, get what I need or want and go out again.  No window shopping, no trying on clothes, no fuss.  Generally though, I can't do that, as either I can't find what I'm looking for or I don't have the money.  But this time I had a bit of spare cash and there was some stuff I needed.  Winter linen, clothes to fit my ever expanding proportions, books, a fluffy blanket with cozy words written all over it....  Stuff I really NEEDED!  All in all this was a very bad idea.  I spent way too much money and so did SisHaw.  And we bought stuff for each other as well.  Oh well, we don't do it very often so I won't regret it.

This photo was taken at Mugg & Bean, the coffee shop/restaurant where we had lunch: quesadillas with herbed mushrooms. YUM!  I may have a quesadilla problem thanks to Lori Otto.  We also had a new drink there; warm apple juice with cinnamon and cloves and topped with cream and caramel syrup.  Delicious.



Day 63: My whimsical purchase.
When I was a little girl, I did a lot of dancing.  For our one dance concerts, my tap class dressed as flappers from the 1920's, feathers included, and we each had a string of pearl beads around our necks, knotted at the bottom.  I seem to remember we danced to a Glenn Miller number...  Anyway, I loved those beads and when I was too cool to wear them around my neck, I wound them around my wrist.  They must have broken or something, because they have been out of my life for many, many years and I often find myself wishing I had them.  So when I saw these, I had to buy them!



Day 64: Museum break-in.
When I got to work on this Monday, I was told that the museum had been broken into over the weekend.  They through a rock through the window to get in.  Fortunately, after going through the museum with all my inventories, I confirmed that nothing was taken.  Which, according to my good friend BookwormBaby25, proves that they were looking for a place to have sex.  Eeeeuw.
 
 

Day 65: Official Twitard. Thank you Amy!!!

 I won a giveaway on Twitarded! TwiKiwi, who is getting more and more svelte with every passing day, found that her Forks 2011 t-shirt was too big for her.  I, on the other hand, am experiencing quite the opposite to Amy, and I don't have a Twitarded shirt.  I bought SisHaw one for her birthday last year, and I got myself a book bag, but no t-shirt for Nikki.  So when STY mentioned TwiKiwi was being so generous I JUMPED at the opportunity.  And above is the result.  All this has made a very happy Duck!


Day 66: Snugly
The blanket I purchased as mentioned above.  It is so snugly and warm and I keep discovering new words!  And it's reversible, so depending on my mood, I can have blue words or brown words.


Day 67: A stitch in time
I knit.  Yes I do.  Not prolifically but still.  I have recently discovered this weird yarn.  It's more like a piece of woollen lace that you knit with.  Anywhoodle, I can make nifty scarves in a couple of hours, which is really great when boredom hits.


Day 68: Winter supper.
One of the many things I have learnt from reading fan fiction is that a 'thing' in America is grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup.  This is not a 'thing' here.  We have tomato soup OR toasted cheese sandwiches.  So, living on the edge as I do, I decided to give this a whirl.  And it is rather good!


Day 69: #SWATH day
Meet CheeseHaw.  Yes, once again they took me to see a movie I wanted to see.  They are good at taking instruction.  And where did we go after?  Mugg & Bean to introduce the man to herbed mushroom quesadillas!

Oh, and I really enjoyed Snow White and the Huntsman.  I enjoyed Chris Hemsworth far more than I thought I would.  And I enjoyed Kristen with green eyes.  We did giggle about the many Twilight-like moments though, and I have continued giggling with friends on Twitter.


Day 70: the days menu...
This Harry Potter box set was my birthday present from CheeseHaw.  And I still haven't finished watching it.  There is so much to see on a BluRay dvd.  On Sunday I got through the special features of The Philosophers Stone through to the special features on The Goblet of Fire.  I haven't even got to the actual movies yet!


Day 71: Catalogue
Part of my job at the moment is to sort out the mess of documents in the Kruger Collection.  And while doing this I realised that the catalogue card system for the collection is also in a mess.  So I'm tackling one thing at a time.


Day 72: Rearview
Notice anything about this pic?  That is the rearview mirror of a beetle.  Yes, I am still driving my mother's beetle.  The car whose air-conditioning consists of windows that don't close properly.  And here we are in the middle (almost) of winter.  It has given me a new appreciation of my car.


Day 73: Found lollipop!
A few weeks ago I tweeted very excitedly that I'd found a lollipop.  I was truly excited, as anyone would be.  I was looking for something in my work bag and lo and behold, a cherry lollipop!  Oh Happy Day.  Well, guess what?  The same thing happened today!  It's not a cherry lollipop but still, it will do nicely.  I think my work bag has some magical lollipop properties.

And the centre of the lollipop is filled with sherbet!